... According to a report released Tuesday by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, China overtook the U.S. in emissions of CO2 by 8 percent in 2006. While China was 2 percent below the United States in 2005, voracious coal consumption and increased cement production caused the numbers to rise rapidly, the group said.

... The study said China, which relies on coal for two-thirds of its energy needs and makes 44 percent of the world's cement, produced 6.2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2006. In comparison, the U.S., which gets half its electricity from coal, produced 5.8 billion metric tons of CO2, it said.

...Beijing also indicated an unwillingness to enforce mandatory emissions caps.

"JUBAO VILLAGE, China -- On the edge of this dusty farming hamlet, the massive smokestack of the half-finished Xinfeng Power Plant looms as a monument to China's out-of-control demand for energy.

Unlike two other power plants nearby, Xinfeng isn't supposed to exist. China's electricity regulators never authorized the $362 million coal-burning plant. But in 2004, the provincial government here in northern China's Inner Mongolia ignored Beijing's call to slow down investment and started building the plant anyway, hoping to ensure enough juice for the region's supercharged industrialization by tapping its rich reservoirs of coal."

"Based on our analysis of the intense economic, crude oil, and military confrontations developing among the China Rim region’s largest economies, we believe that the most aggressive crude oil price targets calling for $100 per barrel within the next three years will prove to be conservative. In our view, specific crude oil price targets are the realm of financial organizations with equity and commodities trading desks. As a pure independent research firm, we have neither. However, it is our opinion that the “likely direction of surprise” in crude oil prices will continue to be to the upside."

"... It is not widely recognised that the US is being subsidised by foreign monetary authorities, mostly Asian. Central banks, led by the People's Bank of China, are financing about 75%-85% of the US current account deficit...

"The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries signalled a significant tightening of oil markets towards the end of this year, warning on Wednesday it would have to pump close to its maximum capacity next winter to meet rising demand from China against the backdrop of slowing Russian production."

"In September, China threatened to veto any move to impose sanctions on Sudan over the atrocities in Darfur. It has invested $3 billion in the African country's oil industry, which supplies it with seven per cent of its needs."

"China, in a desperate attempt to secure oil, is looking to build a pipeline across Burma to the Indian Ocean, thereby avoiding the increasingly dangerous and volatile Straits of Malacca and South China Sea (Asia Times, Sept. 22, 2004). China is also rushing to build a pipeline from Kazakhstan eastward through Central Asia from the Caspian basin, across hostile and expansive territory, some of it close to regions occupied by the US military in Kyrgyzstan. The US has been encircling China militarily since September 12th 2001. China is also cold calling on countries from Iran, to Saudi Arabia, to Venezuela, to West Africa offering large payouts for any oil it can get."

"... The U.S. will have to find some way to deal with those countries which are expected to take the lead in rising energy demand. Those countries just happen to be the world's most populous countries, and all three are Asian. Ranked by population and projected energy demand, they are China, India and Indonesia."

"'Venezuela is the first country in Latin America to receive Chinese investments, and we are very satisfied ... we have come to strengthen this relationship and look for other areas of co-operation,' Wu said.

"The China National Petroleum Corporation bought the rights in 1997. The deal was part of Venezuela's plan to open its state-controlled oil industry to foreign and national companies.

"China also is a major buyer of Venezuela's trademark Orimulsion, a tar-based boiler fuel.

"'China is a country with an enormous population and a huge industrial capacity that demands more and more energy, and Venezuela is a country immensely rich in energy,' said Miguel Burelli Rivas, Venezuela's foreign minister."

"A surge in demand for oil due to rapid economic growth and stagnation in domestic oil output has turned China into a net oil importer since 1993. Faced with increasing reliance on imports to meet its domestic needs, China now places a high priority on securing long-term stability of its oil supply in the next century. Hence a new oil development strategy focuses on boosting the domestic oil industry and exploiting overseas resources.

"In this regard, China has pursued an active 'oil diplomacy' by signing international oil deals with a diverse range of nations from Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, in particular a series of deals worth US$6 billion with Kazakhstan, Iraq and Venezuela in June 1997. While the overseas ventures will no doubt facilitate China's integration with the world economy, such internationalisation of China's oil industry will also carry significant geoeconomic and geopolitical implications for oil-consuming countries."

"The price of China's surging economy is a vast degradation of the environment, with vast planetary implications. Although the Chinese government knows the environment needs protection, ... it fears that doing the right thing could be political suicide."

The US Energy Information Agency reports: "The People's Republic of China (China) is the world's most populated country and the second largest energy consumer (after the United States). Production and consumption of coal, its dominant fuel, is the highest in the world. Rising future oil demand is also expected to make China an even more significant factor in world oil markets.